


shimmering and white

by VesperRegina



Category: Galileo (TV Japan)
Genre: 30kisses, F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-31 11:38:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3976657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VesperRegina/pseuds/VesperRegina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I can understand that it's a biological imperative."</p>
            </blockquote>





	shimmering and white

**Author's Note:**

> If you need to, back out of the story. By choice, a content warning is not provided, but it's possible the content in this story could be triggering. Title is from "Under the Milky Way" by The Church. Fill for prompt #22 "cradle" for 30Kisses.

"What is it?" he asks, and closes his eyes, waiting for the worst, waiting for the inevitable.

* * *

"I'm sorry. I did what -- I mean I tried --" Kishitani covers her mouth with trembling hands, delicate motion that's too late for any attempt at control. She swallows, a noisy gulp of tears down the back of her throat. She hides her mouth with her hands, hides her ruddy nose and eyes, as if he can't tell that she's been making a mess of herself by weeping, as if covering her face would deny that she'd been unable to do anything. That he'd been unable to do anything.

She mumbles a strained condolence, falling back on appropriate ritual that is no solution. Yukawa holds up his hand and Misa flinches. She expects him to blame her, and that is why she holds herself hunched in, shoulders rounded, and a wild wariness to each hesitant glance she gives him. He can't comfort her. She doesn't linger in the doorway to Utsumi's room, just turns her back to him and Utsumi, standing guard, her only motion the passage of hands against her cheeks.

The hospital gown washes out Utsumi's skin into green-tinged sickliness and swallows up her form, sitting on the hospital bed. She picks at the white band around her wrist as she stares past him at a spot on the floor beside him. There's a white line around her lips. The light in this place glares. It's unmerciful; it buzzes at the corners of his eyes, and no one will look at him.

Utsumi worries at the band with singular focus. Shock. She's in shock, and he wants her to stop -- doing that -- it's not her, that's not how Utsumi deals with pain. That's all that moves him forward, makes him put his hand over hers. She pulls her hand from his and turns it over, cupped, like an offering, and then flipped over, laid in her lap.

* * *

Petrichor creeps into Yukawa's lungs, tastes like salt on his tongue. It is grief and life intermingled, mourning and remembrance. He swallows it down, along with the desire to drop to his knees before Utsumi, to demand her attention.

Her face is hidden in her knees, drawn up before her, heels dug into the edge of the wooden bench. 

She's shaking. The quiver is there, under his palm, her hair soft, and he moves to push it aside, but she hunches in more, moving out from his touch. He's left with air beneath his palm, and a sting of rejection that keeps him from being able to take his hand back for a second that elongates, stretches, and only snaps when she brings her legs down and turns into him, her face pressed into his shoulder.

She's anesthesized her pain, but it gains life sometimes, startles and stumbles back into agony and bleeding sepsis, unable to be hidden, no matter how she tries to cover it with denial and overwork, and a bright smile that turns to quiet sobs, under a shield of her hair. It is no less false than her once uncontained emotion. No less false than her almost tearing herself inside out, screaming ragged cries. The truth of it is poison; it is mercury under her skin, oozing out under his fingertips, a toxicity from which he's unable to protect himself.

* * *

"Do you still --"

"Not if -- not without you. It's not worth it. It's not worth it if you don't want it, too."

"I can understand that it's a biological imperative."

"No, it's not. That's a lie, and you know it."

"Would you be happy?"

The tendons in her hands shift and move under the pressure she exerts on them. It's not an answer; it's only evidence of the emotion she's controlling.

"Utsumi."

"I don't know."

"What do you want to do?"

* * *

When she raises her head to acknowledge him, her eyes are dry, clear, empty, frightening in the lack of expression. There's always something there, some sign of life, whether it's annoyance at him, curiosity over what he's doing, contemplation over her own cases, unbridled joy over bringing a new life --

Yukawa sucks in air, tasting sterility, too clean; it burns. He closes his fingers around her wrist, trying not to hurt her, with even just this gentle touch -- that's fear; she's foreign and unknown to him, what reaction will she have to even this.... 

"Ask them if I can go home." Her lips don't seem to move when she speaks and he almost doesn't register the request.

* * *

She doesn't say a word when he stops before her, meeting in the middle of the steps leading out of the sciences building. Her eyes smile more than her mouth does and strands of her hair blow about her face, the winds of a threatening storm making ruins of the carefully combed aside fringe she keeps. As always, it doesn't seem to matter to her, not in his presence, that the wind is making a mess of her cultivated professionalism.

He greets her, comes down to her, and she falls in step beside him. She puts her hand on his arm, coaxes it into the space beside his body, wraps her arm around his. On impulse, because he can, because no one is watching, because the wind isolates them, he halts, turns to her and pulls the fastener from her hair, so that her hair spills free and smooth. He hands the fastener to her and again her eyes smile more than her mouth, the tilt of her eyes and chin sharp with knowing.

She says, "Let's walk."

"The storm--"

"Won't dump rain for another twenty minutes. Probably."

* * *

The hospital wants to keep her, monitor her, but Kishitani takes over, advocates for Utsumi's wishes with forceful calm, helps her dress, and even though she still avoids looking at him, one momentary glance is enough. She could not erase what had happened, but she could try to earn forgiveness.

She'd long since learned not to beg for it, only move on.

Eventually, he will have to thank her, but admitting she'd handled this crisis better than him would never come.

He won't suffer her to handle any more.

* * *

He follows Utsumi to the door of their bathroom, but she closes it, carefully, gently. The lock clicks. She shuts him out and it seems only logical to him, because there's nothing he could say. 

He stands there, listening to the sounds of her moving around, soft shuffles, the warble of water through pipes. He would say... he wouldn't say anything, because there are no words to soothe what she's going through and standing here, his hands empty, noting the texture of the wood before him and nothing else, is useless.

He's never known what to say when faced with grief, doesn't know what comfort to give. Even experiencing its influence has never taught him the words; words remain inadequate and too harsh. She understands it in a way that he doesn't. He seen her offer strength with just a few words, knowledge of what to say never too far from her. It's in the tone of her voice, in her stance, a quiet non-judgmental steadiness, a flame that can never flicker.

He drove her home. The reversal of it seemed wrong, twisted, but there was nothing for it. To see her be lost inside herself, to see her body language speaking of guard, and protecting herself with arms across her middle, fingers tucked into the sleeves of her charcoal suit jacket, eyes closed was worse.

He'd been sitting beside defeat. A broken will. A void where --

There has to be more use of him than to remain here, fists clenched.

Fifteen minutes later, he can hear her phone chiming, cutting through the sound of the dishwashing machine. He dries his hands and he sets aside the dish cloth, and it's her mother, and Utsumi wouldn't want him to reveal what's happened. She'd want to do it herself, so he lets it ring, standing with the phone in his hand, and the knowledge of the pain Kaoru will have in telling her causes him put it down and go back to the bathroom.

He knocks, calls her name, waits for a response. None comes. He can hear the water running, and it's been running, the hum of it loud and obscuring and --

"Your mother called."

He can't hear an answer, even though he strains to hear, waits for a response. He raises his hand to knock again, hesitates, and says, "Kaoru?" At no response, he says, "The water will get cold. Come out --" He stops and starts again, "Please will you come out and tell me what I can do."

"Nothing."

"What?" he questions, not sure if he's heard correctly.

"Go away," she says, in a voice that sounds leaden. "You can't do anything. You'll never be able to."

"I'm worried. Would you let me in?" He rests his head on the door as the seconds pass. There's a click as the door unlocks, and the knob turns under his fingers; he raises his head, but the door stands just clear of the jamb, not fully open.

Inside the air is soaked with steam and her silence, unbearable and sticky. He can make out only the smudged outline of himself in the mirror within, but she, she's drawn up her knees to her face, water pooling around her bare feet, her face hidden.

Even at her most vulnerable she's inviolable, unapproachable. 

There is no answer to this that would not be wrong, but there are facts, as absolute as that knowledge. There was life and then there wasn't, and that's all he's comprehending has changed, but there's also this moment, with someone hurting far more than he is, even if she's still processing it, sitting within reach, and not taking care of herself. Like carving out a hold in an seemingly insurmountable cliff, this is what he fixes himself on.

He reaches for the towel she'd set out -- her presence of mind even when so stressed is an afterthought -- and unfolds it, saying, "It's time to come out."

* * *

"Utsumi." It takes effort -- to say her name, to call her out of her pain -- and he has to repeat it, only to be ignored again.

He can't fix what went wrong. Offering the depth of feeling he supposes she'd want would not work either. He tries to stand, tries to give her the space to gather herself, as once she would have wanted, but before he can, Utsumi's fingers tighten around his arm. She is still hiding, but in him, her face against his arm, holding on as though he could slip through her hands, and he questions her desire to keep clinging when he's sure of all the reasons she keeps saying are nothing. Her breathing is ragged, warm and damp through the thin fabric of his shirt. He fears, nonetheless, that she'll loosen her grip, or be torn from him like the wind around them insinuates, the incipient storm biding its time to crash around them.

She doesn't mean to hurt him. The doubt she feels is venom inside, never absorbed. It is, in its own unforgivable way, meant to forgive. She can't heal because she turns it inward, only for herself. It eats away at everything that was her strength.

She could, should, turn some of that outward, let the poison slither out, scorch him one more time. The full force of it would be preferable to this pretence she believes preserves him from, absolves him of any blame.

* * *

He drapes the towel around her, but she doesn't pull it close, doesn't move. He does it for her, as much as he can. Her hair drips water across his hands and darkens in streaks and dots on his cuffs. He puts ram-rod staightness into his back, an unconscious steeling of strength, but still unable to keep his fingertips from lingering on her shoulder and the plush softness of the wine-colored terrycloth that covers her. It feels like comfort, but it lies. There's a tightness in his chest and a dull ache in his throat, and the weight of her grief sits on his shoulders. He goes to his knees before her, looks into the slackness of her face, the emptiness there frightening. He opens his mouth, trips in silence over what he should call her, because Utsumi is no longer what he's supposed to say, but years of habit stick, and so he uses it now, the honorific falling like a leaf.

He gathers the towel around, tighter, smooths her hair away from her face, her cheeks already cold under his hands. She looks past him, eyes unfocused and lost.

* * *

This is their own world, silent, peaceful. She keeps his hand warm under her own, fingers laced into his, the weight of her head heavy across his legs. The sky hangs above them; it is their only company.

Somehow, they've made this a habit -- to come out to the bench, the one he met Ishigami at. Day or night, it doesn't matter. Time has passed away above them, stars long dead, There's no use for grieving for them now, or looking to them for hope, but her face tilts up to observe them anyway, faint and faraway. 

Maybe through enough observation, enough time....

* * *

She curls herself up on their bed, tiny and cocooned, wrapped within herself, her feet bare and her face hidden, still and quiet. She's over the covers, but after a moment's hesitation, Yukawa pulls what he can over her. She'll need clothes when she's ready, so he spends a few moments searching out something soft and easily put on, nightwear of t-shirt and pants, and underwear. He turns off the light in the room, and stands at the door. A sign. That's what he's waiting for... some indication of her wishes.

"Are you leaving?"

"If you want."

"You should."

She hasn't moved. Yukawa stands, hands coiled. He says, "No." A step, and then another, and one more, and he's there at her side again, bending to her, his hand on her head, and the side of the bed under his elbow. He's beside her, this the only touch he believes she'd tolerate. In this state, he could lie beside her and she wouldn't pull away, but in this state, this fragile tension would break her anyway, and he does not wish to be the weight that cracks her.

"I went in," she says, quiet, almost as though he's not there, like she would talk in her sleep. "They told me not to, but I did it anyway. How bad could it be? I'd seen so much already."

She gives no indication that she can feel his touch, and he listens, and strokes her head, waits for her to elaborate. He shouldn't move, even as he begins to feel a pinch in his legs, circulation cut off in this position.

"I didn't tell you. A year ago, a call about a dead body." She lapses into silence, but the gathering of breath into her body has changed... a little quicker, a little more labored. He moves his hand on her head, stroking in minute shifts of his fingers, keeping contact with his palm. Her hair is drying already, sticking to his fingers. "It was a baby. They had tried to throw her out in the trash." His hand stills. Utsumi's voice hasn't risen; hasn't gained any timbre of emotion to it. "It sounds like a scene from a horror film, right? I had to see for myself; I didn't listen."

She curls inward, tighter, and she swallows audibly, a hard dry pop of sound.

"I had a reputation for never being sick. Guess what happened, Yukawa."

She doesn't look at him. He fears what she'd see and he can't help it; he's drawn back, on guard and unable to stop her... it seems necessary, this recounting of something he'd never even consider as conceivable. 

"They were responsible, those people. They were responsible to take care of their little girl, and you know what they did? They left her alone, and she starved, and cried in her own filth, and they were off for hours, lost in some stupid game online, and then they came home and they-- and they --" Her mouth trembles, and then she's turning her face into the bed, her head shaking, but not before he can see the way it looks like her face collapses under the strain of her memories, a swift violence tearing through.

It is not a surprise; her horror has leached all of that from it. Nothing is left but inevitability: the conclusion is obvious and terrible and foregone and he hears himself finish what she was trying to say, as though he's being compelled. "They murdered her."

The true injustice of this is that it is still hurting her, that it has become part of her map to navigating this, but he can't bring himself to voice that -- it stands outside of her pain too much to be anything but callous. Even the finishing of her recounting seems like a mistake.

She's repeating something as she tosses, soft at first and then loud enough for him to understand. "I couldn't. Yukawa, I couldn't take care--"

Her hand trembles as she reaches for him, unseeing, but he follows its progress, until it connects with his shoulder. She digs her fingers into the fabric, tugging at the collar of his shirt, hard enough to rip, hard enough that he can feel seams cutting into his neck, but she reverses that with a sudden violence that he has no defense against. She shoves him, heels of her palms in his collarbone, slipping out of the bed, an armful of weight and skin and frailness of spirit, her voice brittle shards, "You never wanted this, you only wanted us, and that's it, that was all --"

She pushes him away, and numb, he lets her fall into a heap. Her head touches the floor, and the cries that come from her as she shakes and makes herself small, are rending, horrible agony drawn up from a depth unknown and unplumbable. She gives no sign that she can feel his hand on her back or can hear him saying he's sorry, words wholly inadequate, but the only ones he can find. Only when her sobs are hiccups, weak and intermittent, does he draw her close, cradles her, her arms lax at her side, but her head resting on his arm, across his lap. 

"I wish it was me."

Her skin burns cold on her shoulders under his palms, and he buries his face in her hair, but she doesn't stir even when his tears come, scalding and silent. The shallowness of her breath is the only sign that she's passed into sleep.

"I don't," he says.

She has the small mercy of temporary oblivion, and he has the abuse of memory.

* * *

"It was a mistake, for me to want a child. It was selfish and irresponsible of me to demand it of you." Each word trembles, forced out in sincerity.

"If we both agreed then it was not a demand." This is what logic requires him to answer, but it is not true to what emotion verifies -- not a mistake, not ever, only a choice that went wrong. That's the distinction she would intend, but she paints it in ugly demeaning colors. If she were seeking comfort, she'd take his hand, but she never seeks it, and the loss of it is as full in its emptiness as any contradiction could ever be. Senseless, but it makes no sense to begin with, and whatever accusations she can find to bury him are true. 

"Children terrify you; they always have. It was something I should never have asked of you because you never wanted it."

The barb in her voice only catches in her breath and not in him. Truth is truth. "You did," he answers.

"I did," she answers with quiet conviction. Her eyes are filling with tears, but she struggles against the emotion that's regulating her body's response, overcomes it with an effort that surely costs her. It's not only for his benefit, this suffocation of her feeling; she wouldn't do it if she didn't want to keep herself strong. "I did. I wanted -- I wanted to have one, just one, and you were willing to partner with me, but..." She breathes out, a heavy quavering sigh. Her hands loosen, and she bows her head even more, pulling away, folding herself until her head touches her knees.

Yukawa closes his eyes. The repetition is unbearable, over and over, the same track being worn in them, a scar that never will heal. Over and over, the same decisions.

* * *

It is with familiar ease that she insinuates herself into his space, her perogative to set herself close to him, where he can feel her radiating heat, and she does burn a little hotter these days, though the difference is slight. She should be attracting mosquitoes like a bog, but he's the only one with welts in the spaces he cannot cover. Her fingertips graze against one on his wrist, as she turns herself, and he doesn't protest against this free handling of him. It has its own reward, despite brief irritation.

This is the weight of her head on his thigh, and the tilt of her chin, as she gazes up at him, drawing his arm across her middle, her own arm laid across it, a guardian, or companion. The welt on his wrist throbs at the contact of her skin, the slight shift not enough to ease the itch, but he would not withdraw it for the world if he could.

"Comfortable?" he asks, as she laces her fingers between his.

"Not particularly, but now I have a really great view."

"Up my nostrils," he remarks.

Her silent laughter quivers along his arm, and he stretches his fingers out, the pull along them almost enough to take his mind off the itch. She doesn't let go of his hand.

"The sky, Yukawa. The sky." Her voice trembles with amusement and he can feel the brief mirror of it in his own face, mixed with a gratified sense of pride at his own stupid wittiness, but it flees because the flaring of nerves in response to the toxin in the bite is horrendous.

"My hand itches," he says, unable to withstand it any longer, and pulls it out from under her grasp. She lets go almost before he closes his mouth.

The itch subsides as he scratches it, turning into a dull ache that is easier to abide with -- not the ideal way to deal with it, but as long as he doesn't break the skin, it will do. Under his arm, Utsumi shifts, looking up at him with an expression of mixed emotion, her bottom lip caught between hidden teeth.

Her eyelids flicker when she notices him looking at her, and her features soften into a smile. "Are you being eaten alive? The mosquitoes can't resist you either, can they?"

"You have the luxury of teasing." 

"Well, maybe. They don't like the taste of my blood anymore."

"I regret that I was unable to join you today."

"Misa came with me."

"Not your mother?"

"Like you, she had an engagement she couldn't break. Come with me next time?" 

"Of course."

He touches the side of her ear, a feather-touch, but she captures his hand again, just holding it. "How are you feeling?" he asks. 

"Fine," she answers.

"Both of you?"

She raises his hand to her face, kisses his fingers, before moving his arm down, uncurling his fingers and laying them on her middle. 

"Yes. Both of us."


End file.
